Saturday, during an appearance on CNN’s “Smerconish,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) reacted to the apparent supply chain issues plaguing the U.S. economy.
Clyburn insisted the problems were tied to the pandemic. While he suggested the Biden administration could do a better job “educating people” about the real problems, he said overall it was not “Joe Biden problems” but global problems at the root of things.
“Look, when you don’t have an epidemic, which could be limited to your own borders, you’ve got a pandemic,” he said. “We’ve got the worst in 100 years. Now, we have got to come to grips with the fact that we’re having a global phenomenon here, an international or a worldwide pandemic, that’s affecting everything. If you are on the Pacific coast, you have ships sitting out in the waters. We don’t have that on the Atlantic coast, and there’s a reason for that.”
“In fact, I represent the Charleston Navy — well, I’m saying Navy,” Clyburn continued. “The Navy’s not there anymore, but the ports there on the east coast here in South Carolina, we’re having record years, and our people are working, and things are happening. So, we have to look at exactly where the goods are coming from and what’s happening over in China where plants are closed and other places where we can’t get the toys and can’t get the other things that are necessary.”
He added, “They can’t get here, so naturally, the prices go up, and I wish that we would spend a little more time, all of us, educating people as to what the real problems are. These are not Joe Biden problems. These are global problems that we should all address and not try to put the blame on the sitting president. I don’t care who’s in the White House. They could not possibly do anything about these issues that you and I are now talking about.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor